With content demand on the rise, brands and retailers face the additional challenge of creating a sufficient amount of quality content across different platforms to engage and convert users. As a result, they are turning to new solutions to create, manage, and distribute content at scale.

Generative AI developments are only propelling the space forward. Content creation and distribution solutions are quickly incorporating GenAI to expedite content creation and creative processes at an unprecedented rate.

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This achievement is partly attributed to its pioneering work in accelerated computing, which uses specialty hardware to complete demanding software tasks much faster than previously possible.

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In fact, 4 out of 5 construction firms consistently report having a hard time filling some or all positions, according to the Associated General Contractors of America. With 40% of US construction workers expected to retire within the next decade, this labor challenge is expected to get even more difficult. 

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However, this industry is rapidly changing as new technologies enter the mainstream, from 3D printing to augmented & virtual reality (AR/VR), forcing incumbents like Autodesk to adapt.

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The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in labor shortages and supply chain disruptions around the world, spurring many companies in industries like construction, manufacturing, and energy to turn to tech-enabled solutions to keep projects safe, on schedule, and within budget.

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While AR/VR is often thought of exclusively in the context of gaming, these immersive experiences are expanding beyond entertainment and into areas that directly impacts our lives, including health and wellness. 

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In 2030, the metaverse will be a new digital channel for restaurants to offer engaging, interactive experiences that boost brand awareness and customer experience. In the metaverse, customers can step into a virtual restaurant to browse menus, meet friends, and even order real food that will then be delivered to their door. 

This is one of the key technologies that will shape the future of the fast food experience. Below, we dive into this technology: how it works, who has an edge, and how it’s changing the future of fast food.

WHAT IS THE METAVERSE?

The metaverse is the concept of shared worlds driven by virtual products and digital experiences that are highly immersive and interactive.

Clients can learn more about the companies building the metaverse in our metaverse Market Map.

In the context of the future of fast food, restaurants will be able to build virtual experiences, offer exclusive menu items or digital merchandise, and host virtual events for customers.

FIRST MOVERS

Chipotle was one of the first quick-service restaurant brands to create a virtual experience in the metaverse. In 2021, the fast-casual Mexican chain partnered with Roblox to digitize the brand’s famous Halloween promotion. Players could dress their avatars in Chipotle Halloween costumes, play mini-games, and receive codes for free burritos to redeem in person. 

During the campaign, the virtual restaurant was visited over 8M times and set a company record for digital sales in a single day. In 2022, the fast-casual giant even launched a new menu item on Roblox through an interactive game. 

McDonald’s also made an entrance into the metaverse with a Chinese Lunar New Year event. Partnering with AltspaceVR and Spatial, the brand designed a hall of Chinese zodiacs that players could explore through VR. The food giant has also filed trademark applications that suggest a virtual restaurant may be opening soon that sells both virtual and actual goods with home delivery.

Source: Wendy’s

Wendy’s is another fast food chain experimenting with the metaverse. Wendyverse opened in Horizon Worlds (Meta’s virtual reality world using the Oculus VR platform) in April 2022. Through this partnership with Meta, players were given a set of tasks to complete that would give them a promo code to redeem at a real Wendy’s restaurant.

IMPLICATIONS 

• The metaverse gives restaurant chains space to experiment with marketing and menus. Fast food chains investing in the metaverse can use the virtual space to try out new strategies that build brand awareness among new and existing audiences. This can include collaborations, virtual events, or even just experimenting with tweaks to existing considerations, like restaurant layout and menu items.
• The metaverse is still in its early stages. Restaurant brands and operators should pay attention to the successes and failures of other consumer industries — like fashion and grocery — that are further ahead in their metaverse efforts, to better understand what strategies work best with consumers.
• The metaverse will be an additional channel for facilitating delivery orders and can help drive consumers to stores, growing both revenue and customer loyalty for restaurant brands.

Read more in this report about how tech will shape the future of fast food, including:

• AI tongues and social listening to help brands quickly develop and test new menu items to meet changing consumer demands
• Conversational AI and AI recommendation engines will power online and in-store orders, allowing restaurants to upsell orders through personalized suggestions and prioritize labor for other customer service operations 
• Robotic food preparation will automate cooking to increase profitability and reduce food waste
• Autonomous delivery will help reduce reliance on gig workers
• NFT loyalty programs will create unique experiences and boost customer loyalty

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• Automated logistics facilitating efficient product delivery and returns
• Interactive product setup and care solutions enabling immersive self-service
• Predictive customer service to provide proactive assistance
• AI-powered virtual agents enabling hyper-personalized interactions
• Utility NFTs creating post-purchase engagement opportunities
• Embedded recommerce solutions integrating with the post-purchase journey

Below, we dive into these technologies: how they work, who has an edge, and how they’re shaping what happens after we make a purchase. 

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Microsoft, Meta, and Qualcomm have stepped up their efforts in tech product development, investments, partnerships, and acquisitions.

Download the report to find out:

• The major tailwinds fueling big tech activity in the metaverse
• The competitive advantages of different tech giants in the metaverse
• Where big tech is competing in the metaverse

REPORT HIGHLIGHTS:

• Big tech is showing an increasing interest in gaming. Microsoft and Meta have made a combined 15+ gaming acquisitions, with the goal to own immersive entertainment in the metaverse.
• Tech giants are expanding outside of their core products to compete in the metaverse. Meta is attempting to bring semiconductor development in-house to reduce its dependency on players like Qualcomm, while Qualcomm is bundling its AR/VR chips with AR/VR software development tools.
• Big tech is doubling down on their competitive advantages. Qualcomm is dominating in developing processors for AR/VR. Meanwhile, Meta is exploring social networks and advertising opportunities, while Microsoft is building an arsenal of gaming content it will offer exclusively on Xbox platforms.

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But conventional production approaches might not be able to support brands and retailers delivering personalized, engaging digital content at scale. Synthetic media — content that has been generated, edited, or enabled by artificial intelligence — could be the solution. 

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Big tech players like Meta are investing billions in AR/VR R&D. Advancements in the underlying infrastructure of AR/VR — such as 5G, semiconductors, and AI — are enhancing immersive experiences. And both enterprises and consumers are seeing evidence of the tech’s real-world benefits, from VR for mental health treatment to virtual try-ons for improving retail margins.

While AR/VR has gone through hype cycle before, we’ve identified 5 AR/VR trends that are here to stay, fueled by factors like the rise of the metaverse, e-commerce competition, and big tech investment. 

In this 26-page report, we look at: 

• How simulated workplace training is decreasing employee ramp time and training cost
• The companies racing to dominate AR development
• VR fitness’ promise to deliver convenient, immersive workouts
• And more

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• Automated logistics facilitating efficient product delivery and returns
• Interactive product setup and care solutions enabling immersive self-service
• Predictive customer service to provide proactive assistance
• AI-powered virtual agents enabling hyper-personalized interactions
• Utility NFTs creating post-purchase engagement opportunities
• Embedded recommerce solutions integrating with the post-purchase journey

Below, we dive into these technologies: how they work, who has an edge, and how they’re shaping what happens after we make a purchase. 

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Recent advances in areas like augmented reality, scanning technology, and processing power have helped the company to expand its offerings far beyond traditional computer-aided design (CAD) software into advanced simulations, digital twins, data analytics, molecular design, and more. But this broad array of products is attracting an increasing number of competitors.

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As it looks to stay at the forefront of digital innovation, the firm has ramped up its activity in everything from extended reality (XR) to autonomous driving. Since 2019, Qualcomm has backed more than 80 companies (via Qualcomm Ventures) and made nearly 10 acquisitions, including mobile AR-focused Wikitude and autonomous driving software developer Arriver. In March 2022, the company announced its $100M Snapdragon Metaverse Fund.

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The final game of 2022 between the Golden State Warriors and the Boston Celtics saw a peak of over 15M viewers — larger than the entire population of Belgium. Each of the 30 teams in the league is valued on average at over $2B.

NBA teams primarily make money via ticket sales, merchandise sales, and TV deals. Teams also share revenues from corporate sponsorships and other league-wide initiatives. Historically, the league created brand loyalty through innovative marketing platforms, stretching as far back as 1948 when it partnered with a gum company to produce the first NBA collectible playing cards.

In recent years, the NBA has experimented with the way fans watch games and interact with their favorite teams and players, specifically within digital mediums.

The league is one of the few organizations that has capitalized successfully on the NFT collectibles space and has also made substantial efforts to engage an audience in metaverse-like platforms. Based on this track record, the NBA provides a playbook for companies with strong brand equity looking to enter the NFT and metaverse space.

Meanwhile, internally, the league is using next-gen tools and technology to improve how it scouts players, acquires talent, and strategizes team performance.

Using CB Insights data, we uncovered the 4 most important strategic priorities highlighted by the NBA’s investments and partnerships since 2019. We then categorized companies by their business relationships with the NBA across these priorities:

• Digital content & gaming
• Player analytics & performance tech
• Sports betting
• Streaming

These designations are not exhaustive of the NBA’s investment and partnership activity in the analyzed period.

Digital content & gaming

The NBA is entering into numerous partnerships with digital content & gaming companies, using digital collectibles and VR as novel ways to engage its audience. 

For example, in July 2019, the league partnered with and later invested in Dapper Labs, announcing the creation of NBA Top Shot, an NFT marketplace where users can trade collectible basketball video clips. In August 2021, a clip of Lebron James traded for over $230K on the platform. In November 2021, Infinite Objects partnered with the NBA to provide NFT owners with a physical display for their Top Shot clips. Infinite Objects has raised $6M in early-stage funding from Courtside Ventures and Dapper Labs.

Epic Games, the creator of popular battle royale video game Fortnite, announced a partnership with the NBA in May 2021 to include team skins and other league-themed content in-game. The NBA also has its own licensed video game focused on basketball, further expanding its footprint in the competitive e-sports space. The NBA entered into a multiyear partnership in June 2020 with Dash Radio to live stream the virtual NBA 2K league games.

The NBA has also partnered with Meta’s headset play Oculus VR for a more immersive sports viewing experience. Within the Horizon Ventures app on Oculus, fans are able to interact with other fans as avatars and watch games from a “courtside” vantage point — a view that would be cost-prohibitive for many fans in the real world. Other business relationships, like the joint partnership between Yahoo’s RYOT and MediaMonks, offered live VR games via the Oculus Venues app during the 2021-2022 season.

Watch for more shifts from conventional entertainment outlets to non-traditional content platforms — like those seen in the digital collectibles, VR/AR, and gaming spaces — as sports leagues seek creative ways to engage fan communities outside of traditional broadcasting.

Player analytics & wearables tech

Discovering, analyzing, and honing players’ talents continues to be a key pillar of the NBA’s growth strategy as the league seeks to boost game quality — improving engagement for fans.

The league has made investments in technology that helps scout and recruit exceptional players early in their basketball careers. In July 2019, the NBA participated in a $9M round of Series A funding for NEX, the creator of HomeCourt, a camera-based training app that uses AI to find and help train players.

The NBA also has notable business relationships with companies that are building hardware to aid player performance and recovery. In May 2022, the league invested in Nextiles, a wearables technology company that sews biometric sensors into clothing which are used to help coach players by capturing motion data. Meanwhile, Oura, which makes rings that can monitor players’ heart health, partnered with the NBA in July 2020.

Software company partnerships have also provided a competitive advantage for certain teams in the league. Notably, the Golden State Warriors announced a technology platform with Oracle in November 2021 that provides players and coaches with real-time and historical data to analyze, assess, and hone player performance and strategy.

As sports leagues aim to improve the quality of games to increase viewership, continue to monitor broader developments from wearables and AI companies that could be deployed to help monitor, assess, and develop player health and performance.

Sports betting

Sports gambling has become more popular following the US Supreme Court’s 2018 decision to give states the option to legalize betting on college and professional sports. This can provide a major boost to the NBA’s cash flow. It was estimated at the time that the NBA would earn up to $585M in additional annual revenue from sports betting and additional fan engagement.

Draftkings, an online sports betting platform, became the NBA’s official betting operator in 2019, granting the company access to official betting data provided by the league. Draftkings exited via IPO in April 2020, and as of August 2022 has a market capitalization of about $8B.

Other gambling entities, like Sportradar, have partnered with the NBA. In August 2022, Sportradr announced the launch of Virtual NBA, a new virtual sports betting experience that provides gambling operators with 3,000 simulated NBA games every day — advances in AI may make these simulations more compelling for fans. The virtual games aim to boost betting engagement within the global fan base, which is estimated at over 2.2B people, even in the offseason.

Expect sports leagues to continue exploring partnerships with betting platforms that can expand modes of monetization and offer new ways to keep fans involved, such as through simulated game scenarios.

Streaming

The NBA is actively experimenting with how fans watch games through partnerships with streaming providers — making it easier for viewers to access curated short-form highlights and live updates.

For example, in May 2021, the NBA partnered with Buzzer, a mobile app that provides personalized short-form videos of game highlights in real time. The partnership expands the app’s offerings with NBA League Pass, which is a premium service that gives fans the ability to watch out-of-market games. Buzzer raised $9M in June 2022.

GameOn, an AI-chatbot technology company, announced a partnership with the league in November 2019 that allows fans to interact with its chatbot in Facebook Messenger. The app provides highlights, news notifications, and scoring alerts in real time.

The NBA’s popularity abroad, most notably in Asia, has also led to global media partnerships as well. The league partnered with Tencent Holdings in 2019 to provide exclusive rights to stream games in China. Similarly, in 2021, the NBA announced a partnership with video-sharing app Kuaishou to become the league’s official short video platform in China.

Anticipate an increase in digital streaming viewership and advances in supporting technologies to open up new opportunities for hyper-personalized experiences, such as exclusive highlights or VIP viewing experiences.

Other

NBA teams are partnering with contactless checkout solution providers in an effort to reduce lines and improve payment experiences in stadiums.

For example, Tappit, a cashless mobile payment company, partnered with the San Antonio Spurs in 2021 to provide contactless payments for purchases in its stadium. The partnership will allow fans to use the Spurs’ app to pay for tickets as well as concessions and merchandise. Meanwhile, the Sacramento Kings announced a partnership with Zippin in 2019 to introduce checkout-free technology in concession areas.

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• • Brain-computer interfaces that improve tech accessibility and communication options, particularly for non-verbal patients.
  • Gesture recognition technology that lets people use intuitive motions to interact with machines.
  • Haptics that enable users to feel virtual environments, creating more natural, immersive experiences.
  • Virtual humans that use avatar technology, facial expressions, and natural language to make human-machine interactions feel more like human-to-human interactions. 

Below, we dive into these technologies: how they work, who has an edge, and how they’re shaping the future of human-machine interactions.

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Consumption of durable goods in May 2022 was 19% higher than before the pandemic after adjusting for inflation, according to the Federal Reserve. Meanwhile, e-commerce growth has put pressure on warehouse operators to improve fulfillment speed and inventory visibility — all while the industry faces labor shortages and rising inflation.

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Today, these facilities are filled with people moving quickly around, using handheld scanning devices and other decades-old automation equipment to pick, sort, package, and ship items.

In the future, there will only be the quiet humming of robots without a person in sight. They operate in total darkness and the space is barely heated or cooled — just enough to protect the products and robotics — saving on energy and cost. The robots move in harmony, grabbing items from shelves and delivering them to conveyor belts. An automated packaging system makes a custom box perfectly sized for the goods.

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In this report, we evaluate 15 tech markets that fashion and general merchandise brands and retailers should monitor, vet, and prioritize toward this effort, including:

• AI-powered search & recommendation engines
• Assortment planning
• Demand forecasting & inventory optimization 
• Digital sampling
• Digital signage & displays
• Electronic shelf labels
• Indoor mapping analytics
• Multi-purpose platforms
• Product information management
• Resale-as-a-Service (RaaS)
• Trade promotion optimization
• Trend identification
• User-generated content management
• Virtual try-on
• Wholesale platforms

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Some of this year’s winners aim to provide robotic systems to help manufacturers increase productivity and reduce labor costs. Others are developing advanced analytics that will allow manufacturers to maximize the efficiency and quality of their processes, systems, equipment, and more.

Using the CB Insights platform, our research team picked these 50 private market vendors from a pool of over 6K companies, including applicants and nominees. They were chosen based on factors including R&D activity, proprietary Mosaic scores, market potential, business relationships, investor profile, news sentiment analysis, competitive landscape, team strength, and tech novelty. The research team also reviewed hundreds of Analyst Briefings submitted by applicants.

Clients can access the entire Advanced Manufacturing 50 list and interactive Expert Collection here. (If you don’t have a CB Insights login, create one here.)

Companies are categorized by their primary focus area and client base. Categories in the market map are not mutually exclusive. Please click to enlarge.

Want to be considered for future rankings? Fill out this initial application form (it’ll take no more than a few minutes). If selected, you’ll be asked to complete our Analyst Briefing Survey so that our analysts can better understand your products, customers, and market traction.

TOP ADVANCED MANUFACTURING COMPANIES 2022: ADVANCED MANUFACTURING 50 COHORT HIGHLIGHTS

Below are a few highlights from the Advanced Manufacturing 50 Class of 2022.

Overall funding & valuation trends: The Advanced Manufacturing 50 includes a wide range of companies at different stages of maturity, product development, and funding.

Overall, the cohort has raised $6.9B+ from 369 disclosed investors, across 177 equity deals since 2017 (as of 7/20/22). In 2021 alone, companies in this cohort raised over $3.7B across 46 deals. This year’s list includes 12 unicorns with a $1B+ valuation.

Global reach: This year’s winners represent 13 different countries across the globe. Twenty-seven of the selected companies (54%) are headquartered in the US. Germany and Canada tied for second, with 4 winners (8%) each.

Other countries home to at least one winner on this year’s list include India, China, France, South Korea, Finland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. (Note: This geographical breakdown does not account for companies with multiple global headquarters.)

Top investors: The top investor in this year’s cohort is Accel, as it has backed 5 winners since 2017. Insight Partners and next47 tied for second — each has backed 4 winners over the same time period. 

Innovation at earlier stages: Nineteen (38%) of our winners are Series A or Series B companies with promising product ideas.

To highlight a couple, Landing AI provides a platform designed to help industrial organizations create and deploy computer vision applications for visual inspection. South Africa-based DataProphet utilizes AI to collect data from across factory floor sources, like production equipment and internet of things (IoT) sensors, in order to find process efficiencies.

Most represented categories: Among the categories highlighted on this map, factory analytics & AI holds the largest share (16%) of our winning cohort. The 8 companies featured in this category are focused on developing analytics solutions that increase production efficiency, output, and quality for manufacturers. Companies like Seeq and MakinaRocks provide data-driven insights to guide process optimization, by leveraging AI and real-time production monitoring to analyze past and present data streams.

Robots & collaborative robots (cobots) came in second with 12% of our winning cohort. The 6 companies featured in this category offer robotic hardware and software solutions that support process automation and maximize worker productivity. Some companies in this space, like Rokae, are developing a cross-industry range of robotic systems, including software, control arms, and cobots. Others maintain a more specific focus — for example, Exotec offers industrial robots for manufacturing logistics and warehousing.

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As the world’s most valuable company, with a $2T+ market cap and over $100B in annual profit, Apple has long been known for its cell phones, laptops, tablets, and watches. Today, the company is investing aggressively in high-tech areas like AR/VR, AI, and semiconductors to lay the groundwork for products and features that affect health & wellness, mobility, digital connections, and more.

Although Apple is famously secretive, its acquisitions, partnerships, and investment activity provide a window into where it’s headed next. The company has acquired more than 25 companies since 2018, from edge-based AI startup Xnor.ai to VR streaming platform NextVR. Apple has also committed $430B for new investments and 20,000 new jobs in the US over 5 years — in addition to further investments in Europe and India — across silicon engineering, AI, and 5G tech.

Using CB Insights data, we uncovered 4 of Apple’s emerging strategic priorities highlighted by its recent acquisitions, investments, and partnerships. We then categorized companies by their business relationships with Apple across these priorities.

• AR/VR
• Digital health
• Machine learning & AI
• Semiconductors & advanced materials

These designations are not exhaustive of Apple’s investment and partnership activity in the analyzed period.

AR/VR

Apple started investigating augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) applications over a decade ago, as evidenced by its patent activity. For example, its ARKit framework (launched in 2017) — which enables developers to build AR experiences into their apps — is now used in over 14,000 apps with over 13M total downloads.

In recent years, companies in the AR/VR space have become serious M&A targets for Apple, coinciding with rumors about its internal development of a mixed reality headset that is expected to release in 2023 (eventually followed by a sleeker pair of glasses).

In 2018, Apple acquired 2 companies in the space: Camerai, an Israel-based computer vision and AR tech company, and Akonia Holographics, an AR optics developer. These purchases helped grow Apple’s patent portfolio and talent, setting the foundation for its future AR products.

Then in 2020, Apple acquired two VR companies. First was NextVR for a reported $100M, which developed solutions for the capture and delivery of sports and entertainment virtual reality content. A few months later, Apple purchased Spaces, which created location-based and themed virtual environments.

While Apple has not been explicit about its metaverse ambitions like fellow big tech giant Meta, its continued investment in AR/VR sets it up for more immersive digital environments of the future — and the hardware they may need.

Digital health

Apple is continuing to cement its focus in health as part of a wider strategic priority, as we’ve previously examined here and here. Apple is also working with companies, universities, app developers, and others to move this priority forward.

Central to this strategy are Apple devices, such as the Apple Watch and iPhone, which enable users to track, aggregate, and share their health data.

The company’s research teams are actively exploring new health indicators the Apple Watch could help monitor. Last year, Apple announced a collaboration with Biogen IDEC to investigate how the device can detect declines in cognitive health. Apple has also teamed up with several university and government partners — such as the NIH, the White House, Harvard, UCLA, and the University of Michigan — to conduct studies that use Apple devices to address issues ranging from Covid-19 to noise exposure to women’s health.

Meanwhile, Apple has landed agreements with major health plans like UnitedHealthcare and Aetna to offer subsidized Apple Watches and other wellness services to members.

In 2019, the company purchased Tueo Health, which developed a system to help parents monitor asthma symptoms in sleeping children. This acquisition is further indication of Apple’s intention to engage consumers on health & wellness.

Machine learning & AI

Apple has aggressively acquired companies across the machine learning (a type of AI that leverages past data to understand future scenarios) and AI space — outpacing fellow tech giants like Google and Microsoft — to shore up its AI efforts.

Apple’s AI acquisition spree has been essential to the development of new iPhone features. Many of its purchases are positioned to enhance its virtual assistant, Siri, but they also have applications across many other parts of its software.

For example, Apple acquired in 2019 and 2020:

• Laserlike, an ML platform that could better personalize Siri, news feeds, and video apps for individual users.
• Voysis, to improve Siri’s language understanding.
• Inductiv, which developed an AI platform to automatically identify and correct errors in datasets, helping software to improve with less human intervention.
• Spectral Edge, a company with infrared tech that could enhance iPhone photos.

In January 2020, Apple also acquired Xnor.ai for a reported $200M, which specialized in developing highly efficient ML models deployed at the edge. The edge computing startup could enhance a number of Apple’s device ML models, including those related to capturing and processing images, natural language processing, and object recognition.

Other AI acquisitions include Lighthouse AI, a developer of AI-powered home security cameras, and Silk Labs, which developed on-device ML software. These possibly point to Apple strengthening its smart speaker, the HomePod, with a focus on privacy by keeping data on the device.

Semiconductors & advanced materials

Apple is considered by some as the most advanced semiconductor design firm in the world. It’s also partnered with TSMC — the most advanced semiconductor production firm in the world — to produce chips. Semiconductor production is an extremely complex manufacturing process, making this partnership critical.

Apple’s design history started in 2008, when the company made the prescient purchase of PA Semi, a semiconductor design firm. Apple understood that if it wanted the best consumer experience possible, it needed to design its own chips, tailored to its own devices.

In the years since, Apple has remained aggressive in semiconductor design. The company purchased Intel‘s smartphone modem business in 2019 for $1B, giving it a significant patent portfolio and 2,200 former Intel employees. This followed the acquisition of Dialog Semiconductor‘s power management division in 2018 for $600M. 

Apple has built out its semiconductor capabilities further with investments in critical suppliers, including Corning and II-VI. Corning is the manufacturer of Gorilla Glass, a durable glass used for iPhone screens. On top of the $450M it’s already given to Corning, Apple invested $45M in the company in 2021 — coinciding with the rise of bendable iPhone rumors, though no official purpose for the funding was given.

Meanwhile, Apple invested $410M in II-VI in 2021, building on its $390M investment in II-VI-owned Finisar in 2017. II-VI makes the optical technologies that power features like Face ID and Portrait mode, as well as the lasers used in Apple’s LiDAR Scanner, which is used to create AR experiences.

In addition to these investments, Apple has developed partnerships with leading firms such as Foxconn, one of its main partners in iPhone production, and LG Display, a producer of its OLED displays.

Other categories

Beyond these 4 strategic areas, Apple has made noteworthy acquisitions, investments, and partnerships across a number of other categories.

Autos

Rumors of an Apple car have existed since 2014, further materializing in 2018 when the company partnered with Volkswagen to turn some of the carmaker’s vans into autonomous employee shuttles.

Over the past few years, Apple has also filed a number of car patents. Using CB Insights patents search tool, we can see that the company is focusing on traditional car technologies, such as thermal management systems and vehicle seating.

Beyond patents, Apple has made one acquisition in the space, purchasing autonomous driving startup Drive.ai in 2019. Apple has also reportedly held talks with Hyundai, Toyota, and Porsche — focusing on car and battery production in the US with Hyundai and Toyota, and car production with Porsche.  

DIGITAL MEDIA & Services

Apple has grown its services segment — which includes Apple Music, Apple TV+, cloud services, and others — to nearly $20B in quarterly revenue, with 825M paid subscriptions as of the second quarter.

Alongside this growth, Apple has made multiple acquisitions of digital media companies over the last 2 years, including Scout FM, Vilnyx, Primephonic, and AI Music. These purchases are aimed at enhancing its music and podcasting capabilities, while the Vilynx purchase — for a reported $50M — provides AI tools that help analyze and understand videos. 

Apple’s 2018 acquisition of digital magazine service Texture laid the foundation for its subscription service Apple News+, launched in 2019. 

More recently, Apple notably invested in independent music distribution platform UnitedMasters, participating in the company’s 2021 Series B alongside Alphabet and Andreessen Horowitz. The company also partnered with Verizon to offer the telecom’s Unlimited customers a free trial of Apple Music, and with Comcast on a cross-platform distribution deal for their streaming apps.

FinTech

Apple first released Apple Pay — a digital wallet and mobile payment system — in 2014. Since then, Apple has continued to invest in payments and beyond.

In July 2020, the company acquired Mobeewave, which developed a solution to turn any NFC phone into a mobile payment terminal. Most recently, Apple purchased UK-based fintech Credit Kudos, which uses consumer banking data for better informed credit checks.

Apple has also developed partnerships to grow its services, including with PayHawk and Isracard to expand Apple Pay, and with Goldman Sachs to launch the Apple credit card.

The post Analyzing Apple’s growth strategy: The business moves hinting at the secretive $2T+ giant’s strategic future appeared first on CB Insights Research.

A growing number of tech solutions are being designed to help merchandisers make faster decisions, drive productivity, and scale their work across channels in the face of these complications.

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The post Tech Market Map Report: Merchandising Tech for Brands & Retailers appeared first on CB Insights Research.

Virtual try-on uses technologies like augmented reality, computer vision, and artificial intelligence to allow customers to overlay images of clothes, makeup, and other accessories on an image of themselves or an avatar to visualize how an item will look.

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The post The virtual fitting room: How Amazon, Walmart, Alibaba, and others are using AI and AR to transform shopping appeared first on CB Insights Research.

While they have been mainstream for some time now, the pandemic in combination with increased interest from consumers in their personal health and wellness has ignited a wearable tech boom. Now, new wearable tech devices such as pet trackers, smart jewelry, and augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) headsets are gaining momentum, and equity funding to the space is at an all-time high.   

Wearable computing startups raised nearly $1.4B in 2021, and notably, early-stage (seed/angel and Series A) deals accounted for nearly half of all deals in the space. Augmented reality glasses company Pacific Future and kids health- and wellness-focused wearable provider Kiddo raised a couple of the largest early-stage deals last year, drawing $38M and $16M, respectively.

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The post 70+ early-stage startups shaping the future of consumer wearable technology appeared first on CB Insights Research.